The present disclosure is directed to a method and apparatus for controlling operation of a vehicle heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, more particularly to a method and apparatus for controlling operation of a vehicle HVAC system (e.g., a vehicle front and rear integrated HVAC system) so as to prevent evaporator water splash from being expelled from a vent outlet.
Vehicle HVAC systems are often designed to improve passenger comfort by attempting to ensure consistent climate control throughout a vehicle cabin. In addition to providing consistent climate control throughout the vehicle cabin, vehicle HVAC systems may also be designed to allow for custom climate control in each of several vehicle cabin regions. A vehicle cabin may be considered to include a front region and a rear region, as well as a front-driver side region, a front-passenger side region, a rear-driver side region, a rear-passenger side region, and (for certain vehicles) a third row region.
Vehicle HVAC systems allowing for customized climate control in different vehicle cabin regions may be equipped with separate components associated with vent outlets assigned to each of the vehicle cabin regions. For example, a vehicle HVAC system allowing for customized climate control for front and rear vehicle cabin regions may provide front and rear blowers and front and rear evaporators (or a single evaporator having front and rear evaporator portions) operably associated with respective front and rear vent outlets. This configuration may also include a front region user interface and a rear region user interface through which a user may provide operational instructions.
However, such a configuration may yield undesirable effects due to differences in the mounting positions of the rear units (blower and evaporator or evaporator portion) compared to the front units. One undesirable effect observed with operation of a front and rear integrated vehicle HVAC system is the occurrence of water splash from an evaporator being output or expelled through a vent outlet of the vehicle.